eMarketing News by Bill Scully

Obama Wins the Web SEM Game

2008-10-17T20:02:00.007-04:00

One of the cool sessions at SMX East was Search and US Presidential Campaign. It included online marketers for campaigns of Mitt Romney, McCain-Palin, Ron Paul, and John Edwards. The session was covered live- very nicely by Virginia Nussey of Bruce Clay.

Since then I've seen some other editorial pieces on how bad McCain's PPC program is doing and other articles on the scope and strength of Obama's online marketing.

So I decided to look at the SEM differences.

A Google result for John McCain provides

John McCain 2008
Get Involved and Support The GOP's
Nominee for President John McCain.
JohnMcCain.com

In comparison a search for Obama results in

Obama Campaign Website
Help elect Barack Obama President
of the United States: Donate today
BarackObama.com

The Obama ad is much more compelling, so I decided to look at the Obama website.

instantly he continues to use smart direct marketing tactics - starting with a subscription generator splash page. You immediately start receiving auto generate emails with strong calls to action. But it's done it very professionally, it doesn't come off as spam, and works well to build a brand relationship.

After subscribing I was then taken directly to a nice page breaking down the issues.

I wanted to see how the site reacted upon a second return, and it landed me on a donation page with little else I could do. A very well planned execution to get people to remember to contribute, and get trained not to use the PPC ads to get to the official website.

One you figure out how to get back to his website he makes use of blogging, flicker photo sharing, YouTube videos, and links to every one of his 16 social network accounts.

Really impressive is an option to join his SMS mailing list. This has to give him extra points with the the teens.

It's no wonder that between focusing on the young; recruiting new voters; and keeping the conversation going via email and SMS, he's been able to easly raise 200 million dollars online one form at a time.

This is no presidential endorsement, but I have say - Obama has already won the online marketing race.

Interview with Bill Scully

2008-10-12T22:23:00.002-04:00

Nice interview of me about being a search engine marketer by Duane Forrester. Covers everything from how I got my start as search marketer and biggest SEO challenge to my opinion of the future of careers in search engine optimization.

Check it out.

Speaking at SMX East

2008-09-13T14:46:00.005-04:00

I'm speaking at SMX East in NYC Oct. 8, 2008.
Here me at 9:00 AM on Wednesday morning during the In House Day Session called a Day In The Life Of A Successful In-House SEO.

High Tech Global PPC Spend Analysis

2008-07-02T22:37:00.003-04:00

A new paid search report from Covario (http://www.covario.com) titled “Global Search Spend Analysis” reviewed 128 high-tech company brand trends. The report is their first of this type, and compares Q1 2008 vs. Q1 2007. A big shock is a 52 percent increase in overall paid search spending. This is very different that the industry benchmarks of a 20 percent increase.

The majority of total spend growth has been in North America (58% to 63%)
International budgets decreased 10%. (33% to 23%)
Japan and China spending increased 3.5% (8% to 12%)

B2B Online Marketing Budgets to go up in 2008

2008-02-18T12:59:00.000-05:00

BtoB's "2008 Marketing Priorities and Plans" survey shows 60.1% of marketers plan to increase their overall marketing budgets next year predominantly in online, events and direct mail. Despite the softness in the overall economy only 10.3% plan budget decreases.

The biggest budget increases will be seen in online marketing, with 79.1% of marketers planning to boost their online budgets this year.

Last year, in the BtoB 2007 survey, 62.6% of respondents said they planned to increase their marketing budgets; 29.4% said budgets would be flat, and 8.0% said they planned to decrease their marketing budgets.

In 2008 the primary marketing goal is customer acquisition, cited by 62.4% of respondents, followed by:

Brand awareness (19.3%)
Customer retention (11.7%)
Other objectives (6.6%)

Of those planning budget increases next year:

27.8% plan a 5% to 9% increase in spending
24.6% plan a 10% to 14% increase
12.7% plan a 20% to 24% increase
10.3% plan an increase of less than 5%

BtoB's survey found that the average percentage of the marketing budget spent next year on online marketing will be 33.8%, up from 26.5% in 2007. Among the online areas that will see increases next year are:

Web site development (cited by 74.0% of marketers)
E-mail (70.1%)
Search engine marketing (64.3%)
Video (39.5%)
Webcasting (39.1%)
Banners (36.4%)
Sponsorships (29.6%)
Social media (26.2%)

Of the 19.8% of marketers currently using social media applications:
53.8% use them for thought leadership
40.4% for customer feedback
30.8% for market research
28.8% for advertising
26.9% as a sales channel

Survey Reveals How B2B Purchasers Buy

2007-12-20T11:47:00.000-05:00

A survey of 1000 B2B buyers, asked how they research B2B buying decisions online and how this varies by role within a company, and purchase phase. The report provides valuable information on how to market to B2B companies and the individuals who work for them.

The survey identified roles that the respondents played in, in respect to organizational buying decisions. They identified 4 major roles that are typical, the economic buyer, the technical buyer, the user buyer and the coach buyer.

The economic buyer is the person who ultimately makes the buying decisions and signs the check.
The technical buyer is a person tasked with ensuring that whatever solution that is purchased needs the technical requirements of the company. For technology purchases this would often be an IT professional. For accounting software you would typically be a controller or financial officer. And for sales relationship management software it would be sales manager. While these people usually don't have final financial approval they are integral to the purchase process as they are the ones that ensure the potential solution is the right match with the organization’s needs and requirements.
The user buyer is the person who will actually use the product. Often this person identifies the need and is responsible for implementing what is ultimately purchased.
The coach buyer is the internal champion who helps move the sales process along and usually has a stake in the purchase of the solution.

The report then focuses on how people navigate from awareness, through research and negotiation phases to the actual purchasing decision. The use of search engines, vendor’s sites, what do they look for specifically, etc.

A surprisingly high number of respondents indicated they made their $1000 - $10,000 purchase online after conducting online researchPublish Post. Almost 47% indicated this as the outcome of their research online. 40% did their online research 1-4 months before the purchase.

Here are my take-a-ways:

In all stages of the purchase cycle, weather it be an online of off-line conversion, search engines had the most influence, with the company website coming in a close second.
In all purchasing stages the process started with a search engine almost twice as much as the second highest approach, going directly to a company website.

It's a well done report, with lots of segmented graphs. You can download the free b2b buying influence report from Enquiro.

eMarketing Spending to Reach $61 Billion by 2012

2007-10-26T08:36:00.000-04:00

According to a new Forrester Research report, interactive marketing spending in the United States will triple over the next 5 years, reaching $61 billion by 2012. The growth is expected to be 27 percent annually. The catagory interactive marketing, 8 percent of all ad spending, is expected to grow to 18 percent of total ad budgets by 2012.

Forrester Research Principal Analyst Shar VanBoskirk, said "As firms continue to make customer centricity a higher priority, they will recognize that maintaining separate marketing teams to manage different sets of channels that all target the same customers makes no sense," ... (as) interactive technologies gradually infiltrate... such traditional paragons as television, billboards, and direct mail... the concept of a separate interactive mark eting organization will disappear."

The survey included 344 interactive marketing professionals and was highlighted decisions affecting display ads, search, email marketing, online video, and emerging media (social, mobile, and advergaming).

The report's highlights include:

Search engine marketing will triple in five years. The aggressive use of search marketing will grow the category 26 percent to $25 billion by 2012 due to the increasing paid search costs, new tools and services, and international expansion.
Display advertising (Banners & Sponsorships) will reach $14 billion by 2012. As branding being more accepted online, display ads will an important role for all interactive campaigns
Online video ads will significantly increase 72 percent to $7.1 billion by 2012 as viddeos become consumed at an increasing rate.
Social media and SM optimization will drive emerging channels to $10, a $6.9 billion increase. Emerging uses of social media, mobile, game marketing, widgets, podcasts, were included in this figure.
Little is spent today, but mobile marketing is expected to grow to $2.8 billion. People are becoming more familar with hand held mobile devices, and local search intent and proximity will allow targeted local advertising to off line businesses.

2007-09-06T08:35:00.000-04:00

57% of People say Search Engines are More Important than Ever

and 67% of the online search population is driven to search by offline channels.

In June 2007, iProspect partnered with JupiterResearch to conduct a study of online users about the influence of search titled "iProspect Offline Channel Influence on Online Search Behavior Study".

The report shows that a majority of internet users depend more on search engine listings to find information they are looking for then they did a year ago, even if they know a companies name.

More interesting is that offline events that generated the thought to learn more, are driving people to search engines instead of following the ad's call to action. As an example 30% of people that responded to a magazine ad did a search instead of using the ads URL. That means that your landing pages need to be indexed and/or linked to from the the resulting search page in order to continue the initial ads conversation.

2007-08-08T08:41:00.000-04:00

Sometimes a picture is wort a thousand words.

A Search Illustrated post in Search Engine Land called Search Engine Click-Thru Behavior; You've Got To Be In The Top Ten! by Elliance got me thinking -- so what, then I started thinking how could I use this to get more attention internally about the value of search.

We all know the value of being above the fold when viewing the first search engine results page, but it's been my inhouse SEO experience that if you can get 70% of all targeted terms in the top 10 positions people are happy. How can I get more mind share! What if I applied the percentage of top of fold positions for a tight group of terms, against the total number of searches per time period. But instead of focusing on the visibility, focus on the missed opportunity. That would raise fear in the hearts of Product Managers, and get their attention.

I call it, the Missed Search Opportunities Per Month (MSOPM).

(100% - % Number of search terms in the top 5 positions) * the total number of monthly searches = MSOPM

2007-07-03T09:11:00.000-04:00

The Saboteurs Of Search - Forbes.com

I love this article in Forbes from Andy Greenberg, but when has trying to win become being a bad looser.... or Negative SEO?

Reputation management is a profession. Tweaking content to rise to the top of SERPs naturally pushes down the others. Dominating the top listings is similar to to taking market share.

Yes, link bowling is Black Hat, but it should be pretty easy to figure out who was doing it, and I would expect to see some retaliation. Great for SEOs, bad for their customers. Spend time providing content and the links and external listings will come naturally.

The article mentions a quote from Matt Cutts, senior software engineer for Google, that while spamming other sites is possible, but they make algorithms to prevent these techniques.

2007-05-28T19:26:00.000-04:00

eMarketer.com - Online Ad Spending Hits New Record

"US Internet ad revenues totaled $16.9 billion in 2006, up 35% from 2005, according to the "Internet Advertising Revenue Report" from the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) and PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC). "

It is notes that display ad advertising grew at a higher rate than paid search and 2007 projections are $19.5 billion.

2007-05-12T03:05:00.000-04:00

Search is where BtoB gets done.

Patricia Hursh of SmartSearch Marketing posed a good article over in Search Engine Land “Solving B-to-B Marketers' Problems”.

She discusses the all the things we battle on a daily basis but also reminds us that search is where BtoB awareness and consideration gets done. She wites:

"Do executives and senior managers use search engines? The answer is an unequivocal YES. Several years ago Forbes published a survey entitled A Day in the Life of CEOs Online. The survey looked at Web usage of CEOs and senior-level managers at enterprise companies with 1,000 or more employees. More than one thousand executives participated in the survey. The survey results point to strong C-level use of the Internet and search engines.

49 percent consider the Internet the single most important source of information on business
54 percent conduct online researches
34 percent say they go to the Web first to find information on a product or service
86 percent use search engines "

2007-04-11T09:24:00.000-04:00

26% of Large Advertisers to Increase Spending on SEM by more than 25%

found in a Media Post Article by Gavin O'Malley, Wednesday, Apr 11, 2007 6:00 AM ET

"A FULL QUARTER--26%--OF LARGE ADVERTISERS in companies with annual revenues of $50 million or more plan to increase spending on search engine marketing by more than 25% this year, according to new findings from Jupiter Research.

An additional 28% of large advertisers anticipate spending increases between 11% and 25%, based on the expectation that keyword prices will continue to rise, Jupiter found.

"Because marketers with large companies anticipate including major search engines as part of their branding campaigns, they realize this tactic could result in additional expenses and are planning accordingly," says Kevin Heisler, Jupiter Research analyst and lead author of the report. "But the additional cost is just one of the challenges faced by marketers today."

In addition to keyword inflation, complex campaign management and methods of tracking the success of search engine marketing activity continue to elude marketers, according to Heisler. More collaboration among company CEOs, CMOs, and CTOs could change that, the report states. "

2007-03-05T18:05:00.000-05:00

E-commerce not meeting customer expectations

Eighty thousand online shoppers responded to a Millard Group’s Decision Direct Research - Customer Insight Survey that focused on holiday online shopping experiences.

Only 39% of respondents to the postholiday 2006 survey said they felt that “products met or exceeded expectations.” Thirty-nine percent felt that the item they purchased was “a good value for the money.”

It just goes to show how important it is to communicate thru good descriptions and images, or you can damage your shopping cart brand.

2007-02-21T09:31:00.000-05:00

Faster Page Loading only 2nd to Better Prices

AdWords Retail Newsletter - January 2007

Here are some stat's sited from a Questus survey found in the GoogleRetailer Newsletter:

Questus asked respondents what could have made their Valentine’s Day online shopping experience even better. The answer:

Better prices (including shipping costs): 46%

Faster page download speeds: 30%

Easier to locate products: 26%

Better product photos: 24%

Faster/easier checkout: 23%

Better product descriptions: 22%

I think this would also translate to B2B so start reviewing your product photos and descriptions, and streamlining your site code.

2007-01-09T08:33:00.000-05:00

eMarketer.com - eMarketer's 10 Key Predictions for 2007:
JANUARY 2, 2007

"What to watch for in 2007....

Online Ad Spending Will Hit $20 Billion
Some Money and Lots of Hype for Online Video Advertising
Social Networks Are Set for a $1 Billion Windfall
Downloadable Games Will Get Hotter
Thirty-Seven Million Strong: A 'Minority' Bigger than Canada
Mobile TV Arrives
US B2C E-Commerce Will Cruise Past $200 Billion
The Retail Power of Word-of-Mouth
Broadband Services Will Matter as Much as Speed
DVRs Pump Up TV Viewing"

From Research Brief:

"eMarketer, in its year-end overview, writes:

Total US spending on Internet advertising will reach at least $19.5 billion in 2007. This is 19% more than total spending in 2006. (Though) this rate of growth is sharply down from the 30% or more that has been the norm for several years, (and) the total US advertising spending projected to grow by 1.4% in 2007, the shift to the Internet is set to maintain its momentum in 2007.

US Online Ad Spending (billion dollars)
*Year*	*Online Ad Spend*
2004	$9.6
2005	12.5
2006	16.4
2007	19.5
2008	23.8
Source: eMarketer, December 2006

eMarketer projects that spending on Online Video Advertising will total $775 million in 2007, which represents only 4.0% of projected US online ad spending. Although marketers are increasingly keen on including video in their online ad campaigns, they will continue to face a shortage of appropriate premium placements.

Worldwide ad spending on online social networks should top $1 billion in 2007, up from an estimated $445 million this year. Fueling this growth will be factors such as international expansion, "niche" networks, and search technology to MySpace from Google.

Digital downloading of video games will take off in 2007, and by 2010 this distribution method will account for 22% of all worldwide game software revenues. Video-on-demand (VOD) marketers may find their skills in demand for promoting these platforms.

The number of African-American and Hispanic Internet users in the US will rise to 37 million, from 35 million in 2006. This market will continue to grow faster than the total US online population for several more years.

Mobile TV took its first baby steps in 2006 with professional content. In 2007 a crucial element will be added to the mobile-TV mix: user-generated content (CGC). Given the impact the Web equivalent of this development has had in 2006, advertisers and marketers are likely to face a dizzying array of new choices.

US B2C online sales will comfortably pass the $200 billion mark in 2007, reaching a new record total, which eMarketer projects will be $223 billion. Online retail sales will account for $132 billion of this, with online travel accounting for $91 billion. A significant force driving online travel sales is the demand from relatively affluent baby boomers.

A recent study, from market research firm Compete, found that consumers were more likely to be swayed by CGC (consumer generated content) than by information coming directly from brand advertisers and marketers.

Now broadband is about value-added services and is driven by providers bundling voice, video and data together. Services such as voice over Internet protocol (VoIP) are approaching the 30% penetration range. eMarketer predicts that one in four broadband households in 2007 will subscribe to a VoIP service, rising to nearly 40% of broadband households by 2010.

More people will watch more TV and video content in the future, not less, in spite of digital video recorders (DVRs) and video-on-demand (VOD). They will just be doing so in different ways: via the TV, the Internet, the PC and their portable devices. eMarketer predicts that VOD will be in 30% of US TV households by the end of 2007 and that DVRs will be in 30% of TV households by 2009."

2006-12-29T08:37:00.000-05:00

Google's blog search engine takes over top slot

By Ben Charny, MarketWatch

Last Update: 4:57 PM ET Dec 28, 2006

Beginning in October, Google began shining a spotlight on Google Blog Search with a link to the feature from its main page, Hitwise research director LeeAnne Prescott said.

It worked. "Google knows the power of its main Web site" to steer its vast audience to one of its features, she added.

Google Blog Search's market share jumped to the market-leading 25% recorded last week, Hitwise data show, and in so doing, Google supplanted the leading search engine for blogs, Technorati.

Perhaps more important to Google is how a third of its blog search visitors are part of the highly sought-after demographic of 18- to 24-year-olds. In contrast, Technorati has been doing very well with those 45 and up.

2006-12-29T08:27:00.000-05:00

Holiday E-Commerce Sales Surpass $23B - 12/29/2006
Media Post - by Mark Walsh, Friday, Dec 29, 2006 6:00 AM ET

ONLINE HOLIDAY SPENDING IN 2006 increased 26% over last year to $23.11 billion for the nearly two-month period ending Dec. 26, according to data released Thursday by comScore Networks. A late surge of Internet shopping in the week before Christmas--a 38% jump over the year-earlier period--helped push the total to new levels.

'That online retail consumer spending for the year-to-date has surpassed the $100 billion mark is a testament to the continued growth and strength of the online marketplace,' said Gian Fulgoni, chairman of comScore Networks, in a prepared statement. He added that retail e-commerce now accounts for 7% of U.S. consumer retail spending, excluding gas, autos and food.

Amazon led all retailers in online holiday sales, followed by Dell.com, Yahoo.com, Walmart.com and Ticketmaster.com. BestBuy.com, Walmart.com and Ticketmaster.com posted the biggest gains over last year, with each site increasing sales by more than 50%.

E-commerce sales growth was fueled mainly by buying in big-ticket and popular gift categories including jewelry and watches (up 67%), video games (64%) video game consoles (63%), event tickets (55%), and consumer electronics (39%).

The 26% increase in 2006 online holiday sales is just slightly more than the 24% gain in e-commerce activity during the rest of the year. Web retail sales from January to October increased from $62.6 billion to $77.5 billion, according to comScore."

2006-12-11T13:19:00.000-05:00

US Online Retail Breaks a Record...Again
An all-time record for online sales in one day was set on November 27 when US online sales totaled $608 million. That record has already been broken.

Though this total is impressive, the record has already been broken.

According to comScore Networks, a mere one week later, on Monday, December 4, a new record for spending in a single day was established, as consumers opened their wallets online to the tune of $647 million. This was 26% higher than the total on the corresponding day of last year and it is $39 million more than the total spent on Cyber Monday."

2006-12-08T13:48:00.000-05:00

eMarketer.com - Online Ad Spending to Outpace Overall Ad Market Growth

DECEMBER 8, 2006

Internet advertising continues to gain on other ad categories.

ZenithOptimedia forecasts that global Internet advertising spending will grow by 28.2% in 2007, at the same time ad spending in other media will grow by only 3.9% — in other words, online ad spending will grow seven times faster.

This disparity speaks volumes about the ongoing seismic shift in the world of advertising. However, the shift to the Internet among US marketers is even more dramatic. eMarketer's latest ad spending projections were released on Wednesday (see Internet Advertising Will Weather a Sluggish Economy). These put growth in US online ad spending at 18.9% in 2007, within an entire advertising industry set to grow by only 1.4%."

2006-11-14T08:45:00.000-05:00

MediaPost Publications - Study: Online Video Influences IT Purchases - 11/14/2006
Study: Online Video Influences IT Purchases
by Wendy Davis, Tuesday, Nov 14, 2006 6:00 AM ET

A new study by Universal McCann and KnowledgeStorm suggests emarketers should consider ads in online video, and social networks.

Researchers surveyed over 5,300 business and IT professionals. Nearly all respondents said they viewed online video sites.

63% of respondents said they view online videos at least once a week, another 27% view videos once month.

82% of people share video at least monthly (44% do so once a month, 32% weekly, and 6% daily). A majority said online video had an impact on work-related IT purchase decisions.

2006-10-10T10:46:00.000-04:00

In Online Spin Today,
Seana Mulcahy notes:

The latest Future Spending Index from consultants Retail Forward Inc. just came out, predicting that shoppers will increase their spending in October. The Future Spending Index stands at 99.1 in October, up from 92.7 in September. There are some critical factors that seem to be boosting consumer confidence: gas prices finally dropping, the stock market hitting new records and job openings.

and

52 percent of consumers plan to shop online. These consumers plan to spend about the same as they did last holiday season. Up Market consumers (those with incomes of $75,000+) are predicted to spend 20 percent more online, while Down Market consumers ( Incomes less than $22,500) say they don't shop online.

A holiday shopping forecast by The Performics 50 states that fourth quarter 2006 online sales will eclipse those of last year by 53 percent. This will be about equal to the total sales of both Q1 and Q2 2006, combined. The company also noted that competition for higher-priced, more popular keywords in sponsored search engine advertising has increased significantly.

2006-10-02T08:26:00.000-04:00

E-Mail Marketing Getting High Click, Open, and Conversion Relative to Cost

WebSurveyor Corp.'s August survey reveals that web merchants plan to increase e-mail marketing spending efforts. 18.4% expect to grow their opt-in lists by more than 50% within the next year, while another 25.1% will increase their lists by 16% to 50%.

Reported by Mark Brohan in a recent article, he says that 73% of chain retailers, catalogers, virtual merchants and consumer brand manufacturers taking part in the monthly survey on e-mail marketing, spend 5% of their marketing budget or less on e-mail marketing, yet just over half of respondents, 50.6%, report that 6% or more of their sales come from e-mail marketing, with 25% saying the proportion is over 11%.

63.8% of retailers conduct up to three e-mail campaigns each month and another 25.2% conduct between four and eight campaigns, says the report. 62.8% also indicate that they've increased the frequency of e-mail campaigns in the past year.

E-mail marketing consultants consider an open rate of about 20% and a click-through rate of 4% to 5% to be a highly effective e-mail campaign.
- 26.5% of participants in the survey report open rates of 20% or more (11.2% reported 20% to 25% while 15.3% said more than 25%)
- 11.8% report open rates of 16% to 19%
- 14.6% report e-mail open rates of less than 5%
- 6.2% say open rates of 1% or less.

Click-through and Conversion averages are growing:

- 17% report e-mail click-through rates of 16% or more
- 28.9% report click-through rates of 6% to 15%.
- 20.2% of respondents report e-mail sales conversion rates of 1% to 2%
- 26.5% with conversion averages of between 2.1% and 4%
- 14% with conversion rates of between 4.1%
- 10%, and 3.2% with sales conversion averages greater than 10%

Compared to paid search, he says, which can absorb up to 50% of a big retailer's total annual online marketing budget, e-mail marketing remains relatively inexpensive.

- 41.6% of all retailers taking part in the research spend less than 1% of their total annual marketing budgets on e-mail. That compares with
- 31.3 % spend between 1% and 5%
- 13.8% commit 6% to 10%
- 5.6% spend from 11% to 15%
- 3.8% from 16% to 25%
- 4.1% with e-mail budgets that account for 25% of their overall marketing budgets

2006-09-17T14:14:00.000-04:00

Google Removing Top Adsense Ads Based on Searchers Behavior

"A WebmasterWorld thread reports that the top blue AdWords ads have been removed from the Google search results page. But in fact, it seems to be a user by user setting. Some users will see the top blue ads and some users will not. What does it depend on? It seems it is based on your ad clicking behavior."

Bill: Refresh a search a few times and Google will stop displaying ads at the top of the results.

This is good news for SEOs, providing more search results above the fold to researchers in the early buying cycle who don't usually click on ads.

2006-09-17T14:10:00.000-04:00

Supplemental Results at Goggle just got way fresher!

Results are now much fresher, and thanks to Rusty Brick I found a cool way to check results.

Supplemental results are stored in a separate index than main results, and different spiders are used to index them. I expect they aren't spidered as regularly and are considered less unique/valuable pages to the searchers than the main index results from the same site. If your key message content is on supplemental pages, non-supplemental pages will dominate in the search results. Basically if your page is in the supplemental index, Google has decided it's content is not unique and there is better information out there. A view Supplemental information link is displayed after all search results and I'm assuming is rarely (.0001%) ever used.

To see all site supplemental results do a search in Google for www.url.com/ *** (include space).

Example:
Search "site:industry.siemens.com/ ***, envirex" and you'll see all the pages/files in the supplemental index with the word "envirex" on it. You can even add a negative or positive variable example "+.swf".

To see the number of supplemental results rolling out in google data centers, use the main URL (The tool adds the space and ***, Note it doesn't work for sites having more than 1000 pages) automatically using this tool http://oy-oy.eu/google/supplemental/ unfortunately It doesn't work with variables.

2006-09-15T14:57:00.000-04:00

Industry Benchmark Reveals Site Search Impacts One Third of All Online Sales for Leading Retailers

Coremetrics LIVEmark Index Indicates Site Search Users Purchase 86% More Often and Spend 11% More

"San Mateo, California - April 20, 2005 - On-site search engines are used by consumers in more than one third of all visits that result in a purchase, according to LIVEmark Index data released today by Coremetrics, the leading provider of hosted Web analytics and precision marketing solutions. Coremetrics LIVEmark Index data collected during the second week of April also showed that site search users purchase 86% more often and have an 11% higher average order size than the typical site visitor."

Note: The LIVEmark Index includes over 110 leading web leading web retailers in seven sub-categories: Apparel & Accessories, Specialty Retail, Sports and Outdoor, Home, Garden, General Merchandisers, and Books/Music/Video.

2006-09-06T12:05:00.000-04:00

Time of Day Impacts PPC Clickthroughs

September 06, 2006

By The Marketing Experiments Journal

Marketing Experiments examines significant differences in clickthrough rates depending on the time of day.

When one sets the parameters for a particular Google AdWords campaign, it is all too easy to ignore the impact of the time of day at which your ads are shown.

Recently we decided to go through a very large amount of AdWords data to try to determine at which time of day we would get the highest clickthrough rate.

First, here is how we broke down the different times of day. We segmented the day into six segments, or "zones," of four hours each.

We then went through our data to determine, across four different research partners, whether the conversion rates achieved varied significantly according to the time of day.

As you look at this data, keep in mind that we are measuring only clickthrough rates across six different periods of time.
There are other factors to consider before making changes to your campaigns:

While conversion rates for one particular campaign may be high early in the day, the volume of traffic may be considerably higher later in the day.
Your clickthough rate may also impact your average cost per click, as Google adjusts your costs according to clickthrough rates at different times of day.

In other words, be sure to take all factors into consideration as you refine your campaign.

With regard to clickthrough rates at different times of day, here is what we found out:

There are significant differences in clickthrough rates depending on the time of day.

As mentioned, this is just one element to consider when fine-tuning your campaign. But when you see a change as high as 61.15 percent between different "zones," it is a strong indicator that the time of day at which you show you ads is a factor you need to take seriously.

2006-09-01T08:31:00.000-04:00

Buying For Others Changes Key Word Search Criteria
Research Brief

"According to the Q1 Search Trend Report recently released by Performics, a division of DoubleClick, sales growth between Q1 2005 and Q1 2006 markedly outpaced campaign growth, While campaign size and cost each grew nearly 40 percent, year-over-year sales surged more that 70 percent. In fact, the return on investment realized by search advertisers in March was stronger than it had been at any time in the previous 15 months."

"The report found that consumers in Q1 2006 versus Q4 2005 tended to click on more specific keywords rather than generic category terms, which garner higher costs per click. The percentage of keywords priced above $1.00 fell from seven to five percent from the end of Q4 to the end of Q1, while the percentage of total clicks on these keywords dropped more during the same time period.

"Shoppers in the fourth quarter were buying for others... (but) weren't necessarily sure what," said Frankel. "However, in the first quarter, when shoppers were buying for themselves, they had likely already narrowed down the options, and therefore were searching with more specific terms."

Bill - This has a lot of implications for 4th quarter consumer search terms like "present for dad" etc and be a great cheap buy.

2006-09-01T08:26:00.000-04:00

Shoppers Check It Out Online, Then Go To The Store

"According to BIGresearch's June Consumer Intentions and Actions Survey, when asked how often they research products online before buying them in person or in a store, 87% of nearly 7,500 respondents said they did so occasionally to regularly.

Of those who said they researched products online before buying them in the store:

* 58% made less than $50K per year
* 51% were female
* 59% were between the ages of 25 and 54

In both income groups, the top search engine used for product research was Google.com by a large margin, but WalMart.com made a surprising appearance in the top 5 websites used first among those who did their comparative shopping online before buying in the store."

2006-08-22T11:54:00.000-04:00

How Podcasts Impact B2B Purchase Decisions
Nice set of stats on b2b podcasting..

"Podcasts are a great way to share your thought leading content which is why I found this report by KnowledgeStorm and Universal McCann very compelling. They just announced the results of a joint research study on the emerging role of new media, particularly podcasts, on B2B technology purchase decisions. "

2006-08-02T08:45:00.000-04:00

IP Addresses of Search Engine Spiders
Are you tracking the IP addresses of search engine spiders? You can see a nice list of search engine IP addresses and hostnames here.

2006-08-02T08:43:00.000-04:00

Google AdWords Landing Page Quality Scores : SEO Book.com

SEO Book thinks that redirects may affect your CPC!

"The brutal part with this Google update is beyond providing these general guidelines they failed to define what qualities they are looking for when they test landing page quality. Some of the things Google might be looking for

* if your AdWords ads redirect
* your account history (are you a large reliable spender that has been spending for years? are you new to a saturated market? do you have a spotty past checkered with 20,000 unrelated keyword uploads? do your ads get a strong CTR?)
* history of competitors with similar keyword selections
* if your landing page links to known affiliate hubs
* if your landing page has redirect on outbound links
* if your landing page has many links to other sites or pages that are also advertising on the same or similar keywords
* if your page has duplicate or limited content (or conversely if it has a huge number of links to external sites on it)
* time on site
* rate which people click the back button after landing on your site
* outbound ad CTR on your landing page (especially easy if you are arbitraging AdWords to AdSense)
* conversion rate if you use Google Checkout, Google Analytics, or the AdWords conversion tracker"

2006-07-17T08:49:00.000-04:00

From Online Spin

"While Digg is far from a mega-mainstream Web destination, it has disproportionate influence on search-engine results and blog memes, primarily in the tech and social-media world. Moreover, Digg's tendency to periodically extend beyond its core audience by uncovering and virally launching niche content into mainstream is certainly compelling."

"For example, when Vincent Ferrari submitted to Digg an MP3 recording of his excruciating experience trying to cancel his AOL service with a retention specialist, thousands of people "Dugg" him. This exposed his story and helped catapult it across the Internet, landing on NBC's "Today" show, and getting covered in the New York Times and many other places."

2006-07-10T08:22:00.000-04:00

Red Door's director of search marketing reports on how much companies allocate to search, and how much you should, too.

Retailers reveal how they budget overall marketing spend
The latest Internet Retailer Survey shows the following summary for percentage of sales allocated to marketing budgets. While the data refers only to retailers, we think it generalizes across industries as a fairly good overall benchmark guide.

4.1 percent of all companies earmark more than 25 percent
7.7 percent spend less than 1 percent
18 percent spend between 2 percent and 3 percent
19.9 percent between 4 percent and 5 percent
28.1 percent from 6 percent to 10 percent
21.9 percent from 11 percent to 25 percent
46 percent of catalogers allocated 6 to 10 percent of sales to marketing and advertising

Based on retails in the following catagories:

31.8 percent of manufacturers
27.8 percent of virtual merchants
20 percent of chain retailers

2006-06-09T22:01:00.000-04:00

Searching For Clicks
From Research Brief

A new report from 360i and SearchIgnite, describes the value of the entire path a searcher takes from the first click through purchase. Data from more than 3.9 million users and 5.1 million clicks during the first quarter of 2006 confirms the fact that the more times a consumer clicks on a marketer’s ad, the more likely that consumer is to convert. In addition, the highest conversion rate (9.30%) resulted when the user’s first click and last click on a marketer’s paid search ad were both brand terms.

Other key findings include:
- When the first click is on a non-brand term and the last click is on a brand term, the conversion rate is almost as high (8.73%). Marketers can leverage this by driving non-brand searchers to brand terms, concludes the report
- 5% of conversions from paid search campaigns occur from consumers who click more than one of the marketer’s ads. Purchasers click an average of 5% more of the marketer’s ads than consumers who don’t complete a transaction
- Consumers who click a marketer’s ads ten times are three times as likely to convert as consumers who click an ad only once. Purchasers are more deeply involved in the process
- Conversions also rise as consumers enter more unique keywords. Consumers entering multiple unique keywords accounted for 8.39% of the sample studied, but they accounted for 19.2 % of transactions

The report cites a Hitwise study that confirms that branded paid search terms convert better than non-branded terms in search engines, and that brand terms account for a high percentage of commercial searches. The study of 30 brands in the travel, retail, and business & finance verticals found that 75 of the top 100 search terms contained brand names, up 17% over February 2005. And SearchIgnite studies on branding found that brand terms generally represent a small percentage of the keywords that are managed in a search engine marketing campaign, yet they usually account for a disproportionate percentage of conversions.
Consumers, on average, clicked a marketer’s ad 1.33 times during the searching process. For the consumers who went on to make a purchase, they clicked a marketer’s ad 1.53 times on average – an increase of 15% compared to the overall population of consumers. Put another way, consumers who convert to buyers are more likely to spend added time searching and familiarizing themselves with a marketer’s brand, website, and offerings.

A number of factors that lead to increased conversions. concludes the report, are:
- The frequency at which a searcher clicks your paid search ads impacts the conversion rate. Conversion rates steadily rise as searchers click on more ads.
- The more ways a searcher interacts with your site, the higher the probability of conversion. For instance, searchers who clicked on two unique keyword ads are more than two times more likely to purchase than searchers with only one keyword exposure.
- For searchers who begin their search process on a non-brand term and then switch to a brand term, conversion rates are seven times higher than when there are only non-brand terms.

Finally, for users who start with a brand term and end with a non-brand term, says the report, the conversion rate is four times higher than for the users whose start-click and end-click is a non-brand term. And, for those searchers who click a marketer’s ads more than once, the conversion rate climbs significantly. As an extreme example, consumers who click a marketer’s ads ten times are three times as likely to convert as users who click an ad just once.

2006-06-02T16:51:00.000-04:00

Online Advertising in Japan

eMarketer looks at online advertising in Japan, one of the world's most "connected" markets.

As in many countries with an experienced online population, and borne out by recent data from Video Research Ltd., internet usage in Japan is higher than usage of all other types of media besides television.

New IAB Research Shows 12% Of Web Users Reject Cookies

2006-06-02T16:13:00.000-04:00

New research commissioned by the IAB and presented at its board meeting this week shows that as many as 12 percent of consumers don't accept third-party cookies--that is, the cookies set by ad servers and analytics companies that track the Web sites that consumers visit and the ads they view, among other data.

publications.mediapost....

2006-05-12T18:03:00.000-04:00

Study: Goodbye Purchase Funnel, Hello 'Tumbler'› › › ClickZ News
By Enid Burns May 11, 2006

New research from Yahoo and OMD finds a cultural shift in how consumers use technology to make purchasing decisions. A study released today called the "Long and Winding Road: The Route to the Cash Register" identifies four paths, or product research cycles, consumers follow as they proceed to purchases.

The study breaks purchase paths into four categories: quick paths, winding paths, long paths and long and winding paths. Quick paths are characterized by little research and are used for impulse buys or routine consumer packaged goods purchases. A winding path indicates cross-channel comparison shopping, such as for retail goods. The long path often takes place in just one channel, but is lengthy because the consumer is waiting for an event such as a price drop or the availability of a new model.

The most involved path, and the one where marketers have the most room to convert in-market consumers, is called the long and winding path. Shoppers' paths usually fall into this category when they're seeking big-ticket items like automobiles and financial services. "Consumers of these products are the hungriest for information," the study said.

2006-04-25T08:29:00.000-04:00

Google, Yahoo Grow Search Share
GOOGLE AND YAHOO ARE INCREASING their market share of search, while MSN now lags even further behind, according to new data by Nielsen//NetRatings. Overall, search users conducted 5.9 billion searches last month, up 36 percent from March of 2005, according to Nielsen//NetRatings. But the two largest search engines--Google and Yahoo-saw even higher growth. Google searches increased 41 percent, from 2.1 billion in March 2005 to 2.9 billion last month; Yahoo searches grew 47 percent, to 1.3 billion last month from 907.8 million one year ago. MSN, meanwhile, grew by just 9 percent year-over-year, 5rom 592.2 million to 643.8 million.

2006-04-21T09:22:00.000-04:00

Your Prospects Increasingly Dislike Registration Forms

"Typical data: ThomasNet's Industrial Purchasing Barometer study, released in August, revealed "industrial buyers are growing increasingly frustrated with the lack of privacy they are experiencing online." Although 90% of industrial buyers shop online, they are increasing demanding "anonymity when they search for products online, and in many cases, that desire for anonymity is not being respected." ThomasNet noted,
77% of respondents have a "Don't call us, we'll call you" philosophy online.
56% of respondents do not want vendors to contact them until they have made the initial contact.

81% of respondents said they would not return, or would be unlikely to return, to a Web site that reveals their identities to suppliers.
21% of respondents do not want to be contacted at all. "

2006-04-20T07:41:00.000-04:00

One In Five Say Web Ads Most Effective

MORE THAN ONE IN FIVE U.S. adults, or 22 percent, say the Internet is the most effective way to grab their attention about a product or service, according to a report released Wednesday by Burst Media.

More Than Half Say The Internet is Their Primary Source of Product Information.

The study also found that the Web far outpaces television as a primary source for information about products and services, with 57 percent of respondents saying that the Net is where they turn first to research products they might purchase.

The most striking difference in use of the Internet for product research occurs between income segments. Use of the Internet to gather product information rises dramatically as household income (HHI) increases – going from one-half (50.6%) of respondents reporting HHI less than $35,000 to fully two-thirds (69.2%) of respondents reporting HHI of $75,000 or more. (Chart 1)

2006-04-20T07:38:00.000-04:00

Local Web Spending Predicted To Reach $5.8 Billion

LOCAL ONLINE AD SPENDING SURGED to $4.8 billion last year, a 78 percent increase from 2004's $2.7 billion, according to a new report by Borrell Associates. The report further predicts that online ad spending this year will climb 21 percent to reach $5.8 billion.
"Last year's growth spurt was reminiscent of that seen at the height of the dot-com frenzy in 1999-2000, when many local media companies had just finished building out their Web sites and began selling online advertising in earnest," stated the report, "What Local Web Sites Earn: 2006 Survey."

For the study, Borrell examined revenues at 2,266 local media properties, including 696 daily newspapers, 148 weeklies, 1,154 radio stations, 437 TV stations, and 24 independent local sites. Borrell defined "local online advertising" as "advertising placed by locally based businesses for locally focused online messages."

2006-04-18T08:15:00.000-04:00

Organic CEO: Brand Marketers Turn To Paid Search

MARKETERS USUALLY SPEND BETWEEN 20 and 30 percent of their online advertising budgets on search, Mark Kingdon, CEO of digital shop Organic, said Monday.
"Search continues to be an important part of the digital marketing mix for our clients," Kingdon told analysts and reporters on a conference call Monday. He added that search efforts often are integrated into broader online campaigns.
In addition to purchasing keywords on Google and Yahoo, marketers also are buying pay-per-click ads on "secondary" and "niche" search engines, like Ask.com, Kanoodle and LookSmart, Kingdon said.

Overall, search marketing accounted for about 40 percent of all online ad dollars in the first half of last year, according to the Interactive Advertising Bureau. But many of the marketers purchasing keywords are thought to be small players who don't use large digital agencies such as Organic, whose client roster includes car company DaimlerChrysler, the telecom Sprint and department store Macy's.

2006-04-17T13:12:00.000-04:00

Fathom Follows Keyword Price Drop

For 19 months, online research company Fathom Online has been tracking keyword prices in several vertical industries to determine overall keyword price trends. The resulting Q1 2006 Keyword Price Index (KPI) results reveal that the average keyword bid price has dropped about 3% from $1.43 to $1.39 per keyword since Q4 2005.

This year, Fathom has increased the number of keyword values they track from 4,000 to more than 20,000 in categories like automotive, computers, electronics, finance, telecom, and travel. They believe that the KPI is a good monitor for the overall health of the search marketing industry. Fathom says the Q1 price drop was expected, since keyword prices are seasonal.

Despite the drop, Fathom reports that the average keyword price has actually increased overall by 1.4% since 2004. Even though it fluctuates, the average keyword bid price has settled into a predictable cycle. “Search marketing is growing at a robust 25 percent this year, and price stability helps that growth,” said Matt McMahon, Fathom’s VP of Marketing in a statement. “As advertisers see a more predictable keyword bidding environment, confidence in the channel grows and advertisers continue to invest further in search marketing

2006-04-17T09:38:00.000-04:00

IAB AND COMSCORE RELEASE NEW RESEARCH ON THE EFFECTIVENESS OF ONLINE LOCAL, DIRECTORY AND CLASSIFIEDS ADVERTISING

Compelling ROI Proves Interactive as a Powerful Medium to Drive Online and Offline Sales

Chicago, IL (March 13, 2006) – The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) and comScore Networks, Inc. today announced results of a new study showing a positive return on investment (ROI) and significant conversions both online and offline for companies that participate in online local, directory and classified advertising. The research also shows that these advertising vehicles have a considerable impact on brand image. The IAB Classifieds, Directories and Local Search Committee commissioned comScore to conduct this “Return on Investment in Online Local and Classifieds Advertising” project which studies the sales and brand impact of text based listings for categories including: Automotive, Careers, Construction and Contractors, Financial Services, Hospitality, Professional Services, Real Estate and Retail.

The research, sponsored by CareerBuilder.com, Cars.com, Fathom Online, Verizon Superpages.com, and Volkswagen North America will be presented for the first time at the IAB Leadership Forum: Performance Marketing Optimization in Chicago on March 13, 2006.

> Research Brief Recap

Bill: As more and more vertial results creap into SERPs (ex. Local), it's becomming more and important to have a local search strategy to make the fold.

2006-04-12T18:04:00.000-04:00

Study demonstrates importance of attaining top search results

Watertown, Mass.—A new study shows that 62% of search engine users click on a search result within the first page and 90% of users click on a result within the first three pages of search results. The figures were 48% and 81%, respectively, in 2002. The study, “The iProspect Search Engine User Behavior Study,” was conducted by JupiterResearch and sponsored by iProspect, a search engine marketing firm. According to the study, 36% of search engine users believe that the companies with Web sites listed at the top of the search results are the top brands in the field. In 2002, the figure was 33%. The survey also revealed that 41% of search engine users who continue their search when they don’t find what they were looking for will change engines or change their search term if they fail to find particular results on the first page of search results. Around 82% of search engine users relaunch an unsuccessful search using the same search engine they used for their initial search, but add more keywords to refine the subsequent search. That figure was 68% in 2002. The latest survey was distributed in January to online consumers randomly chosen by Ipsos-Insight, a market research firm. A total of 2,369 individuals responded to the study.

2006-04-07T14:10:00.000-04:00

Yahoo! Tests New Search-Engine Ad Model - Forbes.com

"RBC analyst Jordan Rohan reports that Yahoo! has released a test version of its new search monetization in Scandinavia and will expand the rollout to the U.K. in July.

Codenamed "Project Panama," Yahoo's new model will be similar to that of Google (nasdaq: GOOG - news - people ), which ranks search-engine ads by both the amount advertisers pay for keywords and the relevance of the ad. The Google-like algorithm should result in higher click-through rates than its older model that ranked ads only by the amount paid for keywords.

Yahoo! (nasdaq: YHOO - news - people ) has notified certain high-volume search buyers of the upcoming changes to its sponsored search monetization algorithm and a widespread announcement should be made in the coming weeks, possibly at the AdTech expo."

A full "Project Panama" rollout in the United States and Japan will likely happen in late 2006 or early 2007.

2006-03-31T14:32:00.000-05:00

Google local search shows image ads on maps

"Google has now launched a widely expected feature for local businesses who want to target consumers by their geographic location, by letting them place photos and logos inside balloons that pop up on Google Maps exactly where their business is located. The new Local Business Ad system lets advertisers buy keyword phrases that include zip codes or other location information. Bookseller Barnes & Noble and retailer Ralph Lauren have been testing the product over the last several weeks. Users will also notice that certain searches on Google Local will display icons representing different types of businesses, such as a coffee cup for a café, a shopping bag for an apparel store, or a grocery cart for a supermarket. When the user clicks on the icon, a bubble pops up containing more information about the merchant, including a logo or a store photo and a link to their Web site. Local Business Ads operates in concert with AdWords, so advertisers still bid on keywords which they pay for on a per click basis. The terms they bid for place them on Google Local and Maps as well as in search and contextual results. Analysts like the new local feature and say the next step will be enhanced interactivity, via chat and video. For now, this is a good move forward for Google. The search giant definitely needed something real local businesses could sink their teeth into, and with more improvement in the local listings department, usage will continue to increase, drawing more advertisers from a deeper pool. "

2006-03-31T08:45:00.000-05:00

comScore Study Confirms the Importance of Search in Influencing Offline Buying

"New Study from comScore Networks Sponsored by Google Reveals 63 Percent of Search-Related Purchases Occur in Offline Retail Stores

RESTON, VA, March 21, 2006 - comScore Networks today released results from a new research study that confirms the importance of search in influencing offline buying. The results show that 25 percent of searchers purchased an item directly related to their query, and that of those buyers, 37 percent completed their purchase online. An even greater 63 percent completed a purchase offline following their search activity."

2006-03-31T08:20:00.000-05:00

The Cost of Organic Search
By Wayne Lieb

The search marketing director at Acceleration dispels the myth that natural search is free and explains how to measure its value.

The biggest misconception that surrounds organic (or natural) search engine marketing (SEM) is that it is free. Although you don't pay per click, there is a real cost associated with building organic traffic, and you need to know what this cost is to measure the effect your SEM efforts are having on your marketing return on investment (ROI).

How much is this cost? According to SEMPO, search engine marketers spent $5.75 billion on SEM in 2005. Of this, 11 percent went to organic search, 83 percent to paid search, and six percent to paid inclusion and search engine marketing technologies."

2006-03-29T16:19:00.000-05:00

Google and Verizon Super Page Deal
"ClickZ reports that Google has landed a dead with Verizon SuperPages.com to provide some backfill sponsored results for SuperPages.com. Google will be using its AdWords PPC engine to help Verizon better monetize their online Yellow Pages engines, SuperPages.com. The deal will allow Verizon to increase their inventory of ads. SuperPages will be managing the accounts and they will buy the Google advertising on their behalf."

2006-03-28T08:21:00.000-05:00

2006 Online Marketing Plans

"eMarketer reports that many marketers plan to update their websites, as well as increase the amount of sponsored links and online ads.

It looks like Internet users will be surfing much-improved websites in 2006. According to data gathered by MarketingSherpa at ad:tech, in late 2005, 39 percent of U.S. marketers plan substantial increases in their spending on 'website revamps or tweaks.' Also likely, according the MarketingSherpa data, are more sponsored links alongside search results and a significant increase in online ads."

Bill: Nice Chart.

2006-03-23T08:25:00.000-05:00

Adotas Report: Clicks Twice as Likely with Contextual Ads

"According to a report by marketing research company Synovate for Vendare Media's ad network Traffic Marketplace, consumers are more than twice as likely to click on an ad if it's contextual. Three out of five participants responded to contextual ads as opposed to ads targeted by demographic, geography, or behavior. When asked what sort of ad they were likely to respond to, 62% cited ads that were - a subject of particular interest to you.

Just 28% said they would respond to demographically targeted ads, 24% said they would respond to geographic ads, and only 18% said they would respond to ads based on their web activity (behavioral). While findings for non-contextual ad targeting methods were low, the study also notes that 1/3 of respondents said they either weren't sure about what they would respond to, or had no opinion on the subject."

2006-03-21T08:34:00.000-05:00

iMedia Connection: Ad Networks Crib Sheet

Imedia does a nice job of putting together a crip sheet to compare Ad Networks.

http://www.imediaconnection.com/content/7911.asp
http://www.imediaconnection.com/content/8659.asp

2006-03-15T00:33:00.000-05:00

2006 Best Day to Send: 2005 Response Rate Study
2005 Response Rate Study

In its study of some 4,000 organizations, 230,000 email campaigns, and 2.7 billion (!) email messages last year, ExactTarget found an inverse relationship between list size and email responsiveness: Open and click-through rates both tend to decrease as list size increases.Morgan Stewart, who authored the study for the Indianapolis-based company, sees good reason for companies to segment their audiences: "The smaller the targeted audience, the better organizations can aim their message directly to their subscribers in their email communications."
Also according to the study ...
-B2B emails had higher open and click-through rates than B2C
-Lists with 100,000 or more names had an average open rate of 18.2% and click-though of 3.6%
-Lists with 101-1,000 names had an open rate of 42.1% and click-through rate of 6.8%
-For lists of 1,001-10,000, the rates were 33.2% and 5.1%; for lists of 10,001-100,000, the rates were 25.8% and 4.5%.

The downward trend in open rates by list size stabilizes at between 15-20% average at 400,000 to 500,000 subscribers. At that point, adding incremental names does not have an increased negative affect on open rates.

2006-03-10T22:57:00.000-05:00

Searchers Still Like to Buy Offline

"A new study says that though a majority of shoppers use the internet to research products, nearly half still prefer to make their purchases through bricks and mortar retailers.
The Post-Holiday Online Shopping Study, sponsored by iProspect and conducted by Jupiter Research, found that 47% of Internet users who reported researching products online during the 2005 holiday season bought those products offline at a physical store, by phone or through some other offline channel.

It's not that shoppers are uncomfortable using the internet. Fully 63% of survey respondents said that they researched products at online merchant sites, and 62% of Internet shoppers used general search engines (such as Google and Yahoo!) when researching products online. "

2006-02-23T09:48:00.000-05:00

Performics Reveals Increase in PPC CLicks and Cost

"Performics, the search marketing division of online advertising company DoubleClick, reports that the number of search marketing clicks in Q4 2005 grew 107% over the previous year, and the average cost of keywords rose 114%. "Keyword and overall campaign growth remain very strong. Search portfolios are expanding as marketers seek to connect with consumers during all stages of the buying cycle, and therefore, results are being measured beyond immediate ROI alone," said Stuart Larkins, Performics vice president of search in a statement."

2006-02-22T08:12:00.000-05:00

WhitePages.com LAUNCHES NEXT GENERATION GEO-DESTINATION TARGETING FOR ONLINE ADVERTISERS

Local directory site WhitePages.com is currently testing a new geographical targeting option for advertisers. The feature, dubbed "geo-destination targeting," combines IP-based targeting--a very common technique that allows advertisers to target ads based on the location of a user.

Bill - Wouldn't it be cool to do this during a major Tradeshow?

2006-02-22T08:07:00.000-05:00

Consumers Report Drop In Spam
"FIFTY-EIGHT PERCENT OF CONSUMERS FEEL that the e-mail marketing they receive is usually targeted to their needs and interests--up from 53 percent in 2005, according to a study released Tuesday by e-mail services firm Epsilon Interactive.
The study, based on a January survey of 1005 respondents, also found that spam appears to be waning. Fifty-six percent of consumers reported receiving less spam now than last year. "
"Although spam is on the decline, the survey states, false positives on ISPs' spam filters remain relatively steady. Thirty-one percent of consumers report that e-mail they have opted-in to receive has ended up in their junk mail folder--down from 32 percent last year--and 55 percent of users regularly check their junk mail folders for legitimate marketing messages, up from 52 percent last year. "
The study also noted that Yahoo Mail this year has overtaken AOL as the most widely used e-mail service among those surveyed, with Yahoo claiming 23 percent of respondents, compared to AOL's 15 percent. Last year, 19 percent of respondents used Yahoo, while 20 percent used AOL. Microsoft's Hotmail remains in third place, with a 12 percent share--unchanged from a year ago--while Gmail went from 1 percent in 2005 to 5 percent in 2006. "

2006-02-21T08:31:00.000-05:00

Test Big, Test Often
"'Testing big' means testing something radically different. Many times when I have tested small, I ended up with results that were dead even, statistically insignificant or contradictory when retested. This happened both when we tried to arrive at the optimal number of products for an e-mail (Is 6 better than 8? Is 9 better than 7?), and when we tested different subheads for product categories. Every best-day-to-mail and color test I've done was 'too small' as well.
A big test yielded a big difference in results. We tested two versions of an e-mail, one leading with the advertising message and the other leading with the consumer benefit. Of course the consumer benefit approach won, but what was surprising was the magnitude of the win: it beat the advertising approach by 140 percent! "

2006-02-21T08:18:00.000-05:00

Center for Media Research
Pick Influential Search Engine By Category, But Yahoo! Safe Bet
Findings from BIGresearch's latest Simultaneous Media Survey show that Yahoo! is the overall #1 search engine choice for most influential on purchase decisions and Google is number 4. Media influence and/or engagement are hot topics in today's ROI driven ad world concludes the report.
Joe Pilotta, VP of Research at BIGresearch. Says 'When you look at the impact of Internet Advertising on specific purchase decisions and not just click throughs, the impact of internet advertising is a different story,' For example, the influence on electronics purchases showed Google #1 followed by Yahoo!, MSN, AOL and Ask Jeeves.
Influence of Internet Advertising on Purchase Decisions (Ranked by Search Engine Preference)
Electronics - Apparel/Clothing- Car/Truck - Grocery
1. Google 1. Yahoo! 1. MSN 1. AOL
2. Yahoo! 2. AOL 2. Yahoo! 2. Yahoo!
3. MSN 3. MSN 3. Google 3. Ask Jeeves
4. AOL 4. Google 4. Ask Jeeves 4. MSN
5. Ask Jeeves 5. Ask Jeeves 5. AOL 5. Google
Source: BIGresearch, February 2006

'If we tally the ranking of search engines' influence on category purchase decisions...Yahoo! (is) number 1 with a score of 13, with 1st or 2nd place finishes in every category, MSN number 2 at 21, AOL number 3 at 23, Google number 4 at 26 and Ask Jeeves number 5 at 32...' said Pilotta.
As Pilotta points out, share, as measured by Nielsen//Netratings, may not be the precursor of the important influence on purchase. "

2006-02-21T08:08:00.000-05:00

Display Ads Balloon 12%

"ONLINE MARKETERS SERVED MORE THAN 138 billion display ads last month, marking a 12 percent increase from December, according to new data from Nielsen//NetRatings AdRelevance.
Financial services advertisers accounted for the most impressions by far--22 percent last month, up slightly from 21 percent in January 2005. Telecoms purchased 19 percent of all online ads, more than double last year's 8 percent. Retail goods and services marketers accounted for 16 percent of impressions, compared to 15 percent last year.
Where did marketers spend their online ad dollars? E-mail sites were a favorite choice, garnering 35.1 percent of impressions--up from both last year's 20.2 percent and last month's 32.1 percent. The bulk of those ads were on Yahoo and MSN; Yahoo Mail drew 22.3 percent of all impressions, while MSN Hotmail garnered 9.6 percent. "

2006-02-20T14:51:00.000-05:00

E-Commerce Sales Increase 25%

"E-COMMERCE SALES ACCOUNTED FOR 2.4 percent of all sales in the fourth quarter, up from 2.3 percent the previous quarter, according to new figures released Friday by the Department of Commerce. Total fourth quarter e-commerce revenues came to a seasonally adjusted $22.94 billion. For all of 2005, e-commerce sales rose by 24.6 percent. "

2006-02-16T21:11:00.000-05:00

Auto Industry Revs Up Online Advertising
Automotive advertisers are following the trends and making the switch to online advertising at the expense of other media, according to a new eMarketer report on automotive online marketing. According to the study, the top ten automotive advertisers spent only 2.5% of their total ad spending from January to November 2005 online. The eMarketer report estimates that auto companies will spend $2.7 billion on online advertising in 2007 compared to the $1.4 billion spent in 2005. Furthermore, the auto industry will capture 15 percent of U.S. online advertising spending by 2007 compared with 11 percent in 2005.

In today's press release, Lisa E. Phillips, eMarketer Senior Analyst and author of the new Automotive Online: Gearing Up for Greater Spending report said, "The industry's foot is definitely coming off the brakes and onto the accelerator this year Automotive advertisers are gearing up for an online advertising surge, and it's going to come at the expense of other media. Phillips also commented, The automotive industry is the largest advertiser in the world. In the US alone, the industry spent more than $17 billion in the first 11 months of 2005. But, despite the fact that almost 70% of consumers use the Web at some point in their automotive purchases, the industry has been slow to commit to online advertising and promotion.

Tactics mentioned in the report include: Audi and Volvo sponsoring National Public Radio podcasts; Cadillac's five-second film contest bumping site traffic 35%, according to Promo magazine; Chrysler targeting "Road Trip" advergames to moms interested in its Town & Country minivan; ..."

2006-02-16T21:04:00.000-05:00

Taking a Bite Out of Google's Third Party Cookies

In addition to testing Click-To-Call ads for AdWords, Google is quietly testing an addition to AdSense: 3rd party cookies for tracking image ads. Last week, some AdWords publishers received an email from the AdSense team advising them of the test.
Part of the letter reads:
"To track the performance of a campaign, 3rd parties ad-servers may place a cookie on users' computers to capture standard web traffic information such as time, date, IP address and browser information."
It's something that has been lacking from Google's roundup of AdSense services, and it will allow advertisers to run more individualized and targeted campaigns, opening the door to displaying ads on an individual site by keyword or subject. (Incidentally this may also result in increased AdSense checks for publishers.)"

2006-02-10T14:36:00.000-05:00

SEO Accounts for Only 11% of SEM Spending

"SEMPO recently published a study which shows that a only 11% of all search engine marketing advertising is spent on search engine optimization, with the vast majority, a full 83%, is spent on pay-per-click advertising. "

"While four out of five respondents to the study said they are engaging in organic SEO, the big money still goes to PPC. This means that either organic SEO is considerably less expensive than it should be, or advertisers are more comfortable with sponsored advertising which they can often manage themselves with little outside help and ROI can be tracked more easily and instantly. "

2006-02-10T13:34:00.000-05:00

Online Advertising Reaches New Heights in China

"The Shanghai Daily reports today that spending in online advertising has surpassed the magazine market in China over the past year. The online market yielded 3.19 billion yuan (about $396 million), far surpassing the 1.8 billion yuan from magazines, and closing in on broadcast advertising, which yielded 3.4 billion yuan. The Shanghai Daily points to recent studies conducted by iResearch, which predict that online advertising will surpass broadcasting in 2006 to become China"s most dominant media advertising outlet.
China's online advertising market is led by real estate, information technology products and Internet service industries, and its top advertisers for 2005 were Samsung, China Mobile, and Eachnet (eBay China). Much like current trends in the U.S., search engine revenue from sites like Google and Baidu is encroaching upon the territory of web portals such as Sina and Sohu.
In total, online ad revenue in China has grown from 0.5% of all media spending in 2001 to 2.3% in 2005. By comparison, online advertising in the West accounts for 5% of all media spending. "

2006-02-10T09:45:00.000-05:00

Nielsen//NetRatings: Searches Up 55% - 02/10/2006

"THE TOTAL NUMBER OF SEARCHES in the U.S. conducted across approximately 60 search engines grew 55 percent year-over-year to nearly 5.1 billion searches in December 2005, according to numbers released by Nielsen//NetRatings on Thursday. There were 3.3 billion searches conducted via search engines in December 2004. Notably, while the number of searches conducted online swelled, the number of people connecting to the Internet rose a mere three percent to 207 million people in the United States. Google accounted for 49 percent of all searches in December, up from 43 percent the year prior. Yahoo Search and MSN Search experienced slight declines in their search share points."

2006-02-08T12:10:00.000-05:00

Super Bowl Search Marketing Scorecard

By Chris Sherman, Associate Editor
February 8, 2006

While much attention was focused on the television ads aired during the super bowl, the real winners were those firms who combined traditional media with savvy search marketing campaigns.

Yahoo reports that searches on the phrase 'Super Bowl XL Commercials' increased by roughly 800% in the day after the game was played. The phrase was one of the top 10 most searched upon terms on Yahoo, and the company said that advertisers including Cadillac, Honda and Dove all bid on the phrase and took advantage of the resulting increased search traffic.

Other popular search terms that had traffic spikes included 'Mick Jagger' and 'Tim Hasselbeck,' quarterback of the New York Giants and brother of Seattle quarterback Matthew Hasselbeck. The Yahoo Buzz Log had two posts analyzing Super Bowl related searches�one prior to the game on Saturday February 4th, and another post-game on Monday February 6.

Other game-related search phrases that saw increases included 'Appetizer Recipes' (+336%), 'Chicken Wings' (+97%) and 'Salsa Recipes' (+76%).

Searches on Yahoo for 'Cadillac Escalade' jumped over 75% after the Super Bowl. Cadillac ran a TV ad during the game and also made sure its bids for the search terms were high enough to get its paid listing to appear at the top of Yahoo's sponsored search results. "

Bill: Amasing how TV trnsfers to search! I wounder if we can track hits to our siemens website from TV ads?

2006-02-08T08:31:00.000-05:00

IAB, ABCE Announce Global Spiders & Bots Filtering List

"To help ensure accurate online advertising impression counts during audit processes, the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) and ABC Electronic (ABCE) today announced the launch of an expanded global Spiders & Bots List. The new list, for the first time, combines IAB's advertising-related spiders and bots Ad List with ABCE's Content Traffic List related to robotic site traffic, to help determine the impact that non-human activity may have on ad serving."

Bill: The IAB list costs $3500 but here's a great bot list as receint as Feburary 2006.

2006-02-03T10:44:00.000-05:00

Visits Soar At Online News Sites

"ONLINE NEWSPAPERS DREW AN AVERAGE 53.6 million visitors a month during the fourth quarter--up 30 percent from the previous year's 41.1 million, according to a new report released Thursday by the Newspaper Association of America.

Visitors to newspapers' Web sites also remain longer now than in the past. In the fourth quarter, users visited an average of 42 minutes a month--up 16 percent from 37 minutes in the fourth quarter of 2004. Nielsen//NetRatings compiled the data for the NAA. "

"As online readership increased, ad expenditures also trended up last year. By the third quarter, online newspapers ads reached almost $519 million, marking a 27 percent increase from the third quarter of 2004. Overall ad expenditures totaled $11.96 billion, representing just a 2.4 percent increase from 2004. "

2006-02-02T15:22:00.000-05:00

Owning the Desktop: The Most Expensive Real Estate Online

"The Holy Grail of branding is to become so important to your customer that they want to have immediate access to your site and services right from their desktop. What could possibly be better for a marketer than to have a direct access icon sitting right in front of the family photo background with little Billy and the ever-so-slightly inebriated Uncle Bob? But motivating that consumer to install any kind of direct connection is extremely difficult."

" www.Staples.com – the Easy red button; this is an excellent example of a B2C application that is relevant, useful and actually does what it says, making office supply purchases quick and easy. It’s beautifully designed and very well executed. EASY BUTTON

• www.Southwest.com – Southwest Airlines Ding! brings instant updates on user-generated inquiries to the desktop. While they have not done a particularly aggressive job of marketing it, Ding! is another strong example of useful functionality that consumers appreciate.

2006-02-02T08:18:00.000-05:00

New Study Reports that Search Sites Provides Twice the Conversion Rate When Compared With Other Acquisition Sources

"The Dow Jones story: Search Sites Better At Getting Shoppers To Buy: Study, reports on new research from WebSideStory that shows search engines (both paid and organic listings) provide more than twice the conversion rates than other forms of Internet advertising and marketing.

However, direct navigation offered the highest conversion rate. The sites used in the study cover five product categories.

From the article:

The study defines conversion rate as the percentage of visitors to a site who view an ad or clicking on a search result and purchase a product or service.

Numbers

Search
Search Sites had a conversion rate of 2.3%, meaning that for every 100 consumers clicking on a search result or advertisement, 2.3 people made a purchase.

Other Forms of Internet Marketing

Banner ads, affiliate marketing links, comparison shopping search sites* and other online marketing efforts had a conversion rate of 0.96%.

* Note, that shopping engines are not considered in the main search category.

Search Bypass: Direct Navigation/Bookmarks
Direct to a company's web site (including via a bookmark) offered a conversion"

2006-02-02T08:10:00.000-05:00

Lack of Search Marketing During Christmas Season Hurt FTD's Bottom Line, Head of Marketing Replaced

"From the statement (full text here): The consumer business's order growth for the 2005 Christmas season was below expectations [because of] our decision not to pursue high-cost order volume associated with online search,' FTD president/CEO Michael J. Soenen said in a statement. 'In anticipation of continued competitiveness in the online search environment and to better manage the consumer segment business going forward, we have made management changes within this segment including the replacement of our head of marketing.'"

Bill: Ouch!

2006-02-02T08:03:00.000-05:00

Marketers Find Google Ads Slightly More Effective Than Yahoo & Well Above MSN

"Advertisers Say Search Ads On Google Better Than Yahoo, MSN from MediaPost reports on an Outsell survey of 1,200 advertisers last November that found 71 percent found search ads on Google were effective, compared to 62 percent on Yahoo and 49 percent on MSN. But those most likely to find Google as 'extremely' effective had slightly smaller average budgets than Yahoo and MSN spenders."

Full Story

2006-01-25T09:36:00.000-05:00

Piper Jaffray: Online Ad Market To Surge More Than 30%

"In addition to increased demand for online ad inventory, the repor noted an increase in demand for Web analytics and development services. 'A number of agencies suggested that the demand for increased Web development began about a year ago, and we are at the start of a new Web development cycle,' Rashtchy wrote, citing the desire for increased conversion rates on retail sites and the desire for more interactivity now that broadband penetration has increased as major causes for the heightened interest."

2006-01-23T09:10:00.000-05:00

MediaPost Publications - Online Spending Up 33% In '06 - 01/23/2006
"ONLINE CONSUMER SPENDING EXCLUDING TRAVEL for the first three weeks in January came to $5.5 billion--up 33 percent from $4.1 billion last year at this time, according to new data from comScore Networks. Travel spending came to $3.5 billion for the first three weeks of the year, marking an 8 percent increase from 2005. "

2006-01-19T10:04:00.000-05:00

Internet News Article Reuters.com
Internet users judge Web sites in less than a blink

"In just a brief one-twentieth of a second -- less than half the time it takes to blink -- people make aesthetic judgments that influence the rest of their experience with an Internet site."

"In the study, researchers discovered that people could rate the visual appeal of sites after seeing them for just one-twentieth of a second. These judgments were not random, the researchers found -- sites that were flashed up twice were given similar ratings both times.

They also matched the responses given by subjects who were shown the sites for longer."

Bill - Sorry but no insight as to how to design a page.

2006-01-18T08:46:00.000-05:00

When does less revelant become more read?

Check this out. Ads placed in non-catagory locations get more read than the catagory ads?

TACODA to Launch Landmark Research Study on
Behavioral vs. Contextual Ad Placement -pdf

"TACODA’s partner, Next Century Media, has conducted research for new media and traditional media for over 70 of the top 100 advertisers. TACODA and Next Century Media have begun a four-pronged research effort that will span over more than a year, to understand how it is possible for BT to outperform CT on engagement metrics even leaving cost aside.

"The accumulation of cases is too large to be ignored," says Bill Harvey, CEO of Next Century Media, "and is one of the most surprising set of findings I’ve seen in a couple of decades. How could an ad for a product engage its target audience better in a neutral editorial environment than in an environment that is all about that product category? We studied the data and came up with two hypotheses so far. One we call ‘Clamor’: perhaps the user’s eyes sometimes avoid the ads for cars, for example, in a car-related site, because there are just so many of them clamoring for the user’s attention. To investigate this further we have already begun an eye tracking study being conducted by The PreTesting Company, the leading research company in the use of eye tracking.

"The other hypothesis," continues Mr. Harvey, "so far we call ‘The Unexpected’: perhaps users who are known from their web behavior to be targets for a specific product are surprised when they see an ad for that product on a site where they wouldn’t expect to see it. We are planning to conduct a brainwave experiment to check out the Unexpected hypothesis."
"In addition we are conducting a large series of controlled campaign experiments measuring click-through, a wide range of branding communications metrics, and ROI," concludes Mr. Morgan. "And we are asking the industry to provide cases, whether anonymous or not, that can shed light on this phenomenon. The findings of this program will be shared with the industry and will have important implications for how to use contextual targeting and behavioral targeting to their greatest advantage, so as to maximize ROI for the advertiser and add to the ongoing growth of the Internet as a leading edge advertising and marketing medium."
End Quote"

2006-01-16T09:05:00.000-05:00

Sites Lose Shoppers With Required Registration

About one in three holiday shoppers abandoned a website without making a purchase if the sites required registration, according to Questus study. The report, was based on a survey of 425 U.S. Web users. It also noted that one-quarter of shoppers exited sites if it was difficult to use, while about one in five left if a site didn't seem trustworthy.

2006-01-11T00:18:00.000-05:00

Search Marketers Look to Efficiency in 2006

"Advertisers may get a brief respite from price increases, if current trends persist. Fathom Online's most recent Keyword Price Index (KPI) showed that keyword prices stayed flat overall, ending December at $1.43, which was $0.03 lower than in November, and just $0.01 lower than September's KPI of $1.44. Keyword prices continued to rise in highly competitive categories like automotive, up 10 percent month-to-month; consumer retail, up 13 percent in December, and telecom wireless, up 15 percent month-to-month. Those increases were offset by 10 percent drops in finance and mortgage keywords.

Most advertisers said they plan to use to cope with rising keyword prices by improving a site's efficiency at converting, as well as boosting the efficiency of bid management programs. Only 21 percent of respondents said they could not justify any more spending based on their current ROI, while 19 percent said they could add 10 percent to their budget. Eighteen percent of respondents said they could add 20 percent more, and 17 percent said they could up their budget 30 percent more. "

Bill: I have seen our avg. cost per click increase as high as 22% in the last month.

2006-01-06T08:55:00.000-05:00

Wired 14.01: How Click Fraud Could Swallow the Internet

"Pay-per-click advertising is big, big, big business. So are bogus hits on Internet ads. It's search giants against scam artists in an arms race that could crash the entire online economy."

Nothing new here, but this is a great article for someone looking to understand the issues surrounding click fraud, and how/why it is a real concern.

2005-12-30T08:13:00.000-05:00

Online Shopping Surges - 12/30/2005
comScore Networks reported: "the total online shopping revenues for the period Nov. 1 through Dec. 25 totaled $18.11 billion--25 percent more than last year. "

2005-12-23T11:36:00.000-05:00

Hitwise: Google Dominates Search - 12/23/2005

SEARCH GIANT GOOGLE CONTINUES TO dominate all other search engines and directories sites, according to new data by research company Hitwise. Of the top 15 search engines and directories, Google's market share last month came to around 42 percent, with an average session time of more than 12 minutes. Google's next closest competitor, Yahoo!, garnered a market share of just 17 percent--although average session time, at more than 11 minutes, was close to Google's. MSN Search came in third, with around 14 percent market share and an average session time of almost seven minutes.

2005-12-23T11:31:00.000-05:00

DoubleClick: Consumers Growing Clever, Comfortable With E-Mail

"New consumer data shows that e-mail marketing works--quite well, in fact. Seventy-eight percent of respondents to DoubleClick's sixth annual consumer survey, "E-mail Solutions," said they've made a purchase as a result of receiving an e-mail, 59 percent said they've redeemed an e-mail coupon in a store, and nearly one-third said they've clicked on an e-mail and made an immediate purchase. Users are now comfortable with e-mail; the report says they understand and accept the fact that marketers collect and use data to send them relevant e-mails. However, they are very worried about viruses, spyware and phishing scams: 75 percent fear viruses, 67 percent worry about identity theft, 66 percent are concerned about spyware, and 61 percent fear scams. For the report, DoubleClick polled one thousand e-mail users between May and June, working with ROI Research and Greenfield Online's panel of 900,000 U.S. households."

2005-12-20T20:45:00.000-05:00

MediaPost Publications - Yahoo! Search Tells Marketers To Tighten Ads - 12/20/2005

Click above to read an article, but the details of my email read:

"How this change impacts your listings:
* Yahoo! will display shorter descriptions for SponsoredSearch listings
* You don't have to make any changes to your listings; they'llbe automatically shortened for you when displayed on Yahoo!
* If you'd like to optimize your listings for Yahoo!, beginyour description with one short sentence that includes yourkeyword and focuses on your most important information inthe first 70 characters
* Over time, we will fine tune the exact character count thatwe believe works best for advertisers and search users
* Most of our partners, including MSN, CNN, ESPN and Infospace,will still display longer descriptions for your SponsoredSearch listings, though the exact length may vary frompartner to partner"

This really makes it easier for us becase Yahoo has decided to copy the Adwords style. No more separate ad creation! :) Life is good!

2005-12-20T11:51:00.000-05:00

According to a Holiday eSpending report, online shoppers spent $18.6 billion (excluding travel), from November 05 through Dec. 9, 2005. That is up almost 16 percent from last year.

And accoring to an online survey of 1000 adults around 19 percent of adult shoppers indicated they haven't started their holiday shopping.

I can't wait to see the December numbers, but I don't think online spending numbers will compare unless there is a really a Santa that can deliver by Christmas Eve. :)

Happy Holidays!

Bill

2005-12-14T09:50:00.000-05:00

Global Spec Confirms what we all know is true.

From the GlobalSpec's 2005 seminar series, "Leads to Sales: Building the Bridge," they presented facts about a supplier's technical audience, including: more than 70% of engineers and technical professionals state their preferred way to contact suppliers is through e-mail or supplier Web sites.

2005-12-14T08:50:00.000-05:00

Pheedo Study: Stand-Alone RSS Ads See Higher Click-Throughs - 12/14/2005
"CONSUMERS USING RSS READERS ARE more likely to click on ads presented as stand-alone posts than on ads within posts--7.99 percent to 0.85 percent--according to research conducted this fall by RSS company Pheedo and set for release today. "

The report also notes readership rises at the beginning of the week--peaks on Wednesday then declines. Avg weekend readership is 70 percent lower than weekdays. Bloglines is also the RSS reader of choice.

2005-12-14T08:32:00.000-05:00

Search Use Continues To Grow:
"by Gavin O'Malley, Wednesday, Dec 14, 2005 6:00 AM EST

WEB USERS CONDUCTED MORE THAN 5.1 billion search queries in October--marking a 15 percent increase from June, according to a Nielsen//NetRatings report released Tuesday.

Google maintained its leadership position, garnering 2.4 billion search requests, or almost half--48 percent--of all searches. Yahoo! accounted for 21.8 percent of all searches, followed by Microsoft's MSN, which was responsible for 11.3 percent of search activity.
Time Warner's AOL was in fourth place, with 358,667 searches, or 7.2 percent of search activity. Currently, Google powers AOL's search engine and receives revenue from the company. But, with Time Warner considering a range of options for AOL--ranging from spinning off the company to doing some sort of joint venture with either Google or Microsoft--that deal might not continue for long.

If Microsoft starts powering AOL's search engine, and AOL continues to account for the same proportion of search activity as at present, MSN would have nearly the same traffic as Yahoo!, the current second-place holder.

Nielsen//NetRatings also reported that search activity on InterActiveCorp's Ask Jeeves almost doubled--growing from 75.81 million searches in June to 133.93 million searches in October--still, the engine accounted for just 2.6 percent of all searches.

Additionally, consumers searched for images 328.28 million times in October--a 36.6 percent jump from June, reported Nielsen. Local searches grew by 19.2 percent in that time. "

2005-12-09T08:16:00.000-05:00

Search Execs: Big Brands Muscling Out Small Players - 12/09/2005

"THE INCREASING POPULARITY OF SEARCH engine marketing for branding purposes has brought well-monied advertisers into the game, while crowding out smaller advertisers, panelists said Thursday at an SG Cowen and Co. Internet conference.
Describing the expenditures as 'irrational,' Panelist Bill Wise, CEO of Did-It.com, said that branding-focused advertisers are willing to spend whatever it takes to get their keywords listed. 'Big companies will spend a lot of money to get that market share,' he said. "

Bill: This is not a bad strategy, ranking number one gives revelance (in a searchers mind). Perception is reality. Little guys can compete cheaply in the easy to enter PPC space and look like big guys. Can big advertisers could push out the little guys out and then return to lower PPC pricing (Due to less competition) to achieve the same position?

2005-12-02T14:15:00.000-05:00

Online Video Advertising to See Tremendous Growth: Report

"November 30, 2005 -- Is the explosive growth of Internet video advertising bad news for television advertising? Not really.

"Television and the Internet will find ways to complement each other, winner-take-all is not the name of the game," says David Hallerman, Senior Analyst at eMarketer and author of the Online Video Advertising report. "Video represents common ground for the two media, not a field of battle."

EMarketer estimates that spending for Internet video advertising in the US will nearly triple in 2007 to $640 million from this year's $225 million. By the end of the decade, advertisers will spend at least $1.5 billion on video ads online. One of the main drivers of online video advertising is broadband adoption in the home.

According to eMarketer, the number of US broadband households will more than double from 2004 (at 34.3 million) to 2008 (at 69.4 million).

The key barrier was passed earlier this year, when more than half of US online households connected via high-speed access. Advertisers seeking a mass audience can now look online. By early 2008 more than half of all households - online or not - will log-on via broadband. "

2005-12-02T08:01:00.000-05:00

comScore Media Metrix Search Engine Ratings
By Danny Sullivan, Editor
August 23, 2005

"The comScore Media Metrix qSearch service measures search-specific traffic on the internet. qSearch data is gathered by monitoring the web activities of 1.5 million English-speakers worldwide (1 million in the United States) via proxy metering."

Here's the results -

"Search Provider Percent Of Edit Listings Percent Of Paid Listings
Google 46.4% 52.5%
Yahoo 30.5% 46.0%
MSN 15.5% 0.0%
Ask 6.1% 0.0%
Other/Mix 1.5% 1.5%

Here's a breakdown on how Search Engine Watch has compiled these figures from those in the chart above.
Google: Editorial is combined share of searches at Google and AOL, while paid includes searches at Ask. Ask does have its own self-serve paid listings program, but this was not active in July 2005.

Yahoo: Editorial is share of searches at Yahoo, while paid includes searches at MSN. MSN does have a relatively small paid listing program of its own, one due to greatly expand toward the end of 2005.

MSN: Editorial is share of searches at MSN, which uses its own technology. Paid is covered by Yahoo, as explained above.

Ask: Editorial is share of searches at Ask. Note that some at My Web Search, other search engines beyond Ask are offered. At Excite, meta search results that include Google and others are shown. There's no way to separate out non-Ask powered results from the Ask figure provided by comScore.

Other: Share of searches from other sites that use their own technology or editorial processes. May include also some share that belongs to the other provider categories already named. However, there isn't enough detail to properly break out these shares. "

2005-11-21T08:33:00.000-05:00

Search Engine Use Continues To Surge
by Wendy Davis, Monday, Nov 21, 2005 6:00 AM EST

"SEARCH ENGINE USE HAS CONTINUED to surge in the last year, according to a new report by the Pew Internet & American Life Project and comScore Networks.
Forty-one percent of 1,577 Internet users surveyed by Pew in September and October reported that they had visited a search engine the previous day. When Pew conducted a similar survey in June of 2004, just 30 percent of Web users said the same. In fact, the only Web activity more popular than searching was using e-mail; about 52 percent of U.S. Web users told Pew researchers they had sent or received e-mail on the day before being surveyed this fall. "

Whats' interesting is that...
"Heavy use of search engines correlated with broadband connections, according to the report. Seventy percent of survey respondents who had broadband at home and work reported that they used a search engine the day before the survey, compared to just 33 percent of those with dial-up connections."

And... "Search use also seems to correspond with affluence. On a typical day, 52 percent of Web users in households earning at least $75,000 used search engines, compared to just 29 percent of those with household incomes of less than $30,000. "

2005-11-21T08:28:00.000-05:00

Search Engine Stats
Google Web Search had 75 million unique visitors last month, followed by Yahoo! Search (68 million), MSN Search (49.7 million), Ask Jeeves (43.7 million), and AOL Search (36.1 million), according to comScore.

2005-11-14T08:36:00.000-05:00

Google Personalized Search Leaves Google Labs:
"Google Personalized Search went live, says Search Engine Watch. The new feature reorders search results based on a user's search history in order to make them more relevant. Users will also have the ability to search through their history, allowing them to revisit previously viewed pages and bookmark those pages in order to find them again easily. However, personalized search is not something that just happens organically; it's an option offered through a Google account, which users receive when they sign up for AdWords, Gmail and other services. Other enhancements made to the product include a more sophisticated remove-results feature that lets users block individual results, URLs, or even whole domain names from search results. In the future, Google plans to integrate personal search with Google News, which, by the way, is still in beta, for some reason. News searches will be accessible through user history (although Google only maintains news stories for up to 30 days after publication), and will also contribute to search results. This feature is expected "soon."

2005-11-09T08:48:00.000-05:00

Matt Cutts has confirmed that Hidden CSS text can get your banned.
"Google has the right to decide not to return that site in our search results, because we feel that hiding text that is not visible to users is deceptive. "

Lots of concerns over the current list of white hat uses of CSS hidden text, but it makes sense for Google to place content over design when only taking content into account.

2005-10-26T08:38:00.000-04:00

MediaPost Publications - Advertising.com: Behavioral Targeting Increases Conversions - 10/26/2005
by Wendy Davis, Wednesday, Oct 26, 2005 6:00 AM EST

SERVING ADS TO CONSUMERS WHO already have demonstrated an interest in the product or services offered by the marketer is a more efficient use of online ad dollars than serving ads to the public at large, according to a study released Tuesday by America Online's Advertising.com.

For the study, Advertising.com evaluated the performance of three online ad campaigns--in the financial services, automotive, and education spaces--conducted between July and September. For all three campaigns, Advertising.com served identical banner ads to Web users at large, as well as to users who had visited a site relevant to the marketers' business in the last 30 days. For example, for the car campaign, Advertising.com targeted people who had visited a car research site within 30 days, and then compared how that group responded to ads with how consumers at large responded.
The company found that conversion rates were higher for the group that had been targeted based on Web surfing than for those served ads on a more random basis. The car campaign saw a 323 percent increase in conversion rate, defined as completing a registration form. The finance campaign saw a 90 percent increase in conversions, defined as opening an online bank account; and the education campaign saw a 105 percent increase in conversions, measured as those who filled out a registration form.

At the same time, in a counter-intuitive finding, the study also revealed that click-through rates were lower for the targeted group than the more random ad viewers. Click-throughs for the car campaign fell by 64 percent for the targeted consumers; for the education campaign, the rate fell by 22 percent; and for the finance campaign, the drop-off was 56 percent.

The lower click-through rate came as a surprise to researchers, who had expected that users who were tagged as potential customers would want to click and convert at a higher rate than the more random users.

One theory that might explain the lower click-throughs is that some Web users are simply more curious about ads than others, said Eric Eller, director of behavioral marketing at Advertising.com. Eller suggested that targeting might also filter out the more generally inquisitive types who click on ads without any intention of purchasing. "When you target a group," proposed Eller, "you're losing the clicks coming from the generally curious."

2005-10-24T13:21:00.000-04:00

Webisodes return, now as advertising!

"The Wyndales are a typical American sitcom family. Dad is a dolt, and his college-age rock musician son writes all about his pop's antics on his blog.

But don't look for the animated gang on television. The Wyndales are starring in an Internet series, with weekly webisodes that are meant to entertain - and sell health insurance.

Remember webisodes? Now they're back, this time as advertising vehicles, courtesy of a robust online ad market and growing broadband audience.
EHealthInsurance's Am I Covered? (amicovered.com) made its debut last week. Today, Jeep's We Are The Mudds (wearethemudds.com) series premieres, joining other recent webisodes from Unilever's I Can't Believe It's Not Butter (tasteyoulove.com) and Target (oddsagainst7even.com.) "

2005-10-14T13:44:00.000-04:00

Watch This Car Disappear

"Pontiac introduced its limited edition Solstice on 'The Apprentice.' When the episode ended, viewers were pointed to Yahoo! for additional information about the vehicle. Pontiac's goal was to sell 1,000 cars in 10 days.

Mark-Hans Richter, Pontiac's director of marketing, was dumbstruck by the results. 'A 10-day program was over in 41 minutes for the first 1,000 Solstices. We thought about 10 days was reasonable for a car no one's driven before.' Not only did Pontiac make its target before the show even aired on the West Coast, but 4,000 additional cars sold in advance of the launch -- Pontiac's entire first-year production.

'That's $125 million worth of steel that has been moved in about four hours,' pointed out Jim Moloshok, Yahoo!'s just-departed SVP of entertainment. 'This shows that online can move big-ticket items. Maybe a CPM-plus-CPA model could be considered by automakers. What percentage would GM be willing to give back as a sales commission?' he mused, adding, 'Some people went to Pontiac's site, so we can't take all the credit.'

'Going into this you don't know what to expect because you don't have a lot of control,' Richter told me. 'You're yielding control for potentially more risk, and more reward.'